I believe in God’s provision.  I believe he is committed to looking after his all his people financially.

 I also believe we have a supernatural enemy who wants to rob us of truth, and that one of the most effective ways of accomplishing that is by distorting truth.  So if the enemy wants to rob us of the Biblical promise of God’s provision, he will produce a twisted version of it which will lead the weak astray and turn the rest of us off.  And this leads us into another form of error.  Reaction against distortion turns into a different kind of distortion.

Why is money is so often a forbidden topic in church?  Jesus certainly didn’t have that view.

 Jesus talked a lot about money. In fact, he talked about money more than he talked about anything else. More than he talked about faith, prayer or even heaven and hell.

We were involved in yet another conversation about the imperfections of the local church.  And imperfect they all are.  But some folk seem to live under the illusion that the local congregation they belong to will cater to their crises, meet their needs, satisfy their longing for wonderful encounters with God and provide the best teaching possible, and do all this without requiring them to contribute a whole lot of their emotional, spiritual or financial resources in return. If you ever find the perfect church, as the saying goes, you’ll ruin it as soon as you join.

We were sitting on the sidewalk outside a cafe in London enjoying the warm sunshine and a coffee when a large crowd appeared marching down the street. It turned out to be a Good Friday procession. It was encouraging to see such a large group of believers expressing their faith. After they passed, I began to listen in on an interesting conversation taking place behind me.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, the only things you can be certain of are life, death and taxes. If that’s the case, this week proved to me he was right. Last Saturday, I led the funeral service for my mother, who went home to be with the Lord in March. It was a wonderful time, shared with family and more friends than we expected. Mum had longed to be with the Lord and with my Dad, and at 98 she had indeed the run the race and done it faithfully.